Friday, 22 August 2014

The Guest Writer #2: Sofia Åkerberg on The Petrified Forest and Revolutionary Road

The blog has a new feature, the occasional guest writer, somebody who is given complete freedom to write about whatever he or she wants, and in whatever way they choose, with my job only to proofread it (and perhaps add an image, or a fact or a figure for clarity). The previous guest was Barry Putterman. This time it is Sofia Åkerberg.

Sofia, who lives in Arboga, Sweden, writes one of Sweden's best film blogs, Rörliga bilder och tryckta ord, which covers not only film but also literature, with a particular emphasis on fantasy and science fiction writing. The blog is in Swedish only but here she of course writes in English.

***

The Petrifying Suburbia by Sofia Åkerberg

What does Bette Davis and Kate Winslet have in common, apart
from the fact that they were both born on a Sunday, both on the fifth (April
and October) and are both two degrees removed from Kevin Bacon (via Mary
Steenburgen and Eli Wallach, respectively)?

Quite a lot as it turns out. To be specific, these two fine
actresses have both played the character Gabrielle Maple in The Petrified Forest. The American
playwright Robert E. Sherwood wrote this piece in 1935 and only a year later it
was made into a movie, directed by Archie Mayo. Here, Davis was flanked by not
only Leslie Howard but also a swarthy and intense actor in the beginning of his
career by the name of Humphrey Bogart (both of Howard and Bogart were repeating
their performances from the stage).

At the beginning of Revolutionary
Road, both the book from 1961 by Richard Yates and the movie from 2008 by
Sam Mendes, Kate Winslet's April Wheeler is also playing Gabrielle in a
production of The Petrified Forest
staged by the community theatre group the Laurel Players. But the connections
between ThePetrified Forest and Revolutionary
Road run deeper than a mere enactment of the same play.

Gabrielle Maple is the daughter of a dirt poor owner of a
service station in the middle of nowhere, i.e. the Arizona desert. Despite the
uplifting sign announcing “Last Chance!” this place offers absolutely no
chances for Gabrielle. While the college football player and hired hand Boze
tries to pick her up (to no avail), Gabrielle reads François Villon and dreams
about a real life, an exciting life, in France (where her war-bride mother is
residing).

Enter hitchhiker Alan Squires, a penniless and failed writer
whose only goal at the moment seems to be to traverse the North American continent.
It turns out that he and Gabrielle have a lot in common, or at least that
Gabrielle wants them to have a lot in common. He talks about ambitions, life
and death in a way that the young woman has never heard before. His eloquent
self-hatred, cultural refinement (nice going with that T.S. Eliot quote, Alan)
and lugubrious disposition represents an irresistible appeal to her.

When Revolutionary
Road premiered there was a lot of talk about how Frank and April Wheeler
were the sad continuation of the characters played by Winslet and Leonardo
DiCaprio in Titanic. What if, instead
of one of them drowning in icy waters, Rose DeWitt Bukater and Jack Dawson had
had the opportunity to survive together in suburban Connecticut? I would like
to think that a more apt question that Revolutionary
Road tries to answer is: what if Alan and Gabrielle had managed to create a
life together?

After an enchanting romance in New York, Frank and April
Wheeler does everything by the book when it turns out that a baby is on the
way. They buy that adorable house in western Connecticut which naturally is
close enough to the big Apple so that Frank can commute each day to the same
company that employed his father.

Frank and April might do everything by the book but the
important thing to them is that they do not live by the book. They see suburbia
for the sham that it is, its hopeless emptiness, and Frank acquired his boring
job at Knox Business Machines as a joke more than anything else. In order to
maintain his identity he does not want to have a job that might be even
remotely interesting while he figures out what he really wants to do with his
life.

But four years on the same page and the joke is wearing
pretty thin. Frank still tries to maintain that he and April are different,
more aware, better, that their neighbours while April has realised that they
are exactly like them. And unlike her husband, she decides to take action.

Like Alan and Gabrielle, Frank manages to woo April with
self-deprecating wit and beautiful words, making her think that he is “the most
interesting person I've ever met”. But unlike Gabrielle, April gets an
opportunity to realise that there is nothing behind the sarcastic façade. Alan
and Frank are two men lost in a rational world, without a definite purpose
apart from a vague desire to do something that will make their mark.

Since Yates (and, thereby, Mendes) gives Frank more time to
unveil his character than Sherwood gives Alan, we are able to realise that the
man is somewhat of a smug jerk. As soon as he is opposed, be it by his wife, a
temporary guest or the roommate of his mistress, he lashes out. The fights
between him and April are truly vitriolic and we even understand that he is no
stranger to throw a punch or two. April tries to secure Frank’s humanity by
offering him an opportunity to find out what he wants to do with his life, but
in reality, her determination emasculates him. He is no more fit to be a kept
man by a capable woman than was Alan (who was supported by his publisher's wife
for a while).

The Petrified Forest
starts with a discussion on the miserable state of the republic (the great
depression and dust bowl doing their bit) while a sign behind the bar claims
that “Tipping is un-American”. However, this is not the kind of revolution that
goes on inside the house at Revolutionary Road. A revolution is in its essence
a fundamental change of power and during the time we get to follow Frank and
April the power surges from Frank to April, back to Frank, only to pass over to
his wife yet again. But regardless where the power lies, Frank is never truly
satisfied.

When April has control he tries to take it back. But as soon
as he has got his trophy he does not know what to do with it. The same goes for
his wooing of April – winning her was a great achievement but he does not know
how to handle the prize once he got it. In this way, Frank's mistress Maureen
becomes a new Gabrielle who is as easily impressed as April was the first time
they met. She makes him feel like a man again, enabling him to conjure up
images of lions and eagles.

Despite how the story turns out, The Petrified Forest ends on a more positive note. Perhaps some
would call it delusional. But we are still left with the impression that Alan
does more good for Gabrielle when dead than alive, although she might not see
it right there and then. She is alive and still able to pursue her dreams which
is more than can be said for either April or Frank when we take leave of them. Maybe
the complacent 1950s in reality was more demoralising than the great depression.

Links to all my writings

...

Daily tweets

Some words about me

I have a Ph.D. in film history from the University of St Andrews. The thesis was about Swedish cinema in the 1940s, with a focus on the great but largely unknown Swedish filmmaker Hasse Ekman. I also have an M.A. in the History of Ideas. My book about Hasse Ekman, The Man from the Third Row, was published by Berghahn in October, 2016.

I teach film history at a university outside Stockholm and I also work at the library at the Swedish Film Institute.Previously I have been working at the Ingmar Bergman Archives, among other things going through all of Bergman's personal correspondence. I have also been working as Ingmar Bergman coordinator at the Swedish Institute, organizing Bergman festivals all over the world.

I write regularly for different film journals, such as Filmrutan and La Furia Umana(where I am on the editorial board). I have contributed to some edited collections and I have also written articles and reviews for Frames Cinema Journal, which I was the founding editor off.